English
Stage 2
Years 3–4
The right word: Roget and his thesaurus
BRYANT, Jen & SWEET, Melissa
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, USA (A Junior library guild
selection)
ISBN 9780802853851 [423.092]
Introducing students to the history of the
thesaurus and its author, Peter Mark Roget,
this lavishly illustrated biographical picture
book will appeal at several levels. Roget
began writing lists at the age of eight. His
obsession with list-making and categorisation
culminated in the publication of his Thesaurus
of English words and phrases, classified and
arranged so as to facilitate the expression
of ideas and assist in literary composition in
1852, continuously published in print, albeit with a shorter title,
to this day. From his early days as a shy, studious child to his
career as a doctor, an inventor, and author of scientific papers
and the thesaurus, the narrative is engaging. Bryant’s clever use
of synonyms and use of his father’s death in his first list, hint that
this devastating event was the cause of Roget’s obsession with
words, and could lead to discussion on point of view. Sweet’s
collages, inspired by Roget’s notebooks, contain lists, scientific
classifications and botanical drawings that provide a detailed 19th
century background of Roget’s interests, and are superimposed
with illustrations to support the narrative. Roget edited his
thesaurus many times so that everyone should be able to find
the right word whenever they needed it and a closer inspection
of Sweet’s illustrations could support English K–10 syllabus
Objective B: Grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. C . Keane
USER LEVEL: Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
KLA:
AC; English
SYLLABUS: English K–10
SCIS 1699942 $29.99
Teaching and learning opportunities:
NSW syllabus for the Australian curriculum English K-10 syllabus
• Discuss the purpose, intended audience and structure of the
book. EN2-8B
• Respond to the reading of the text by creating a Y chart of
characters, events and context as a whole class activity EN2-2A
• Make a sequential bullet point list of the major events in Roget’s
life. In pairs, students work on a section of his life, elaborating on
these events. Use the Super sentence strategy and Thesaurus,
kids.net.au to improve these sentences. EN2-9B
• Experiment with layering of text and images, and use of lists and
framing in own compositions. EN2-8B
• View and discuss the book trailer. Students change their earlier
paragraphs/sentences to first-person narrative. Pronouns,
cohesive links and interesting sentence beginnings will occur
naturally to avoid the repetition of I at the start of each
sequence. EN2-9B
• Share and reflect on writing with peers, and make improvements
to create combined written text, podcast or book trailer. EN2-12E
Advice, implementation support and resources for NSW DEC
teachers: AC – NSW syllabuses for the Australian Curriculum
(NSW DEC intranet)
Additional resources for engaging with
words:
• Pig the pug by Aaron Blabey (Scan review)
•
Raps and book raps
• The Swap by Jan Oremerod & Andrew Joyner (Scan review)
• Thesaurus Rex by Laya Steinberg & Debbie Harter
• The word spy by Usula Dubosarsky
A treasure house of words:
The right word: Roget and his
thesaurus
Australian curriculum springboard
Programming:
Composing creatively: choosing the right words
The right word: Roget and his thesaurus relates the life of
Peter Mark Roget and the publication of his thesaurus, which
means treasure house in Greek, and is a wonderful resource
for engaging with vocabulary. It can be used as a stimulus
for students to focus on aspects of grammar, punctuation,
vocabulary and spelling to compose their own texts. Use a
variety of strategies in the composing process to build field
knowledge, and an understanding of cohesive links at the
clause, sentence and paragraph level. Like Roget, create
lists of synonyms and similes to help the students write
creatively. The short video Teachers TV: primary English
- w riting activities features the Super sentence teaching
strategies about different ways students can improve their
sentence writing. Accessing a thesaurus such as Thesaurus,
kids.net.au will provide an engaging activity for creating
lists of synonyms. The right word: Roget and his thesaurus
is an illustrated biographical picture book. In response to
the main events in Roget’s life, students could create an
autobiographical text by using first-person narrative to create
a written text, a podcast or a book trailer. The timeline at the
end of the book and the publisher’s book trailer are excellent
resources for this activity. Students, in pairs or small groups,
could work on sections of Roget’s life and combine them to
produce the autobiography for sharing with their own and
other classes.
Style
The quirky written text, font, images and framing represent
the historical period of Roget’s life and works in an unusual
way and illustrate the creative process in sharing this
biography. These stylistic choices can be explored and will
provide opportunities for students to experiment with these
elements in their own compositions.
2015 Volume 34, Issue 2 56
The right word: Roget and his thesaurus
[book trailer]